[sdiy] 3046 vco help?

[dan snazelle]

oh and in response to your question, it does sound pretty good for being such a low parts count VCO!


heck, without the square wave shaper tacked on, its only a handful of parts....i am thinking about putting 3 or 4 of these in a box for fun and maybe adding some other shapers


the only problem I am having right now is that the waveforms are NOT centered around ground (or at least not in my setup +/-12v) so I am going to have to add some offset BJTS or opamps

it sounds great with a filter


On Aug 18, 2011, at 3:08 PM, Magnus Danielson wrote:

> Hi Dan,
> 
> On 18/08/11 18:34, Dan Snazelle wrote:
>> I have been messing around with the EFM 3046 vco
>> 
>> http://www.modular.fonik.de/files/EFMforum/orgEFMfiles/3046_VCO.pdf
>> 
>> i would love to understand how the core circuit works.
>> 
>> (minus the square shaper)
>> 
>> I see 2 differential amps, a fet, a cap and a pnp....how does it work though?
>> 
>> I figure if i could get my head around a simple core like this transistor core, it might make understanding other discrete vcos easier to grasp.
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for any help!
> 
> The lower left transistor pair is the expo-pair. The collector on pin 1 pulls current through from the 10 nF capacitor which is then being buffered by the J112 FET which essentially acts like a emitter follower.
> The output of that is being tossed into the upper pair which acts like a comparator which with the 2N3906 acts like a reset of the sawtooth.
> Finally, the 2N3904 is the output comparator for the square signal.
> 
> There it is. Not too odd setup. The "benefit" of this is the lack of high gain in the feedback path, which can make it warmer due to the inherent trigger jitter, but explaining that can be a bit tricky, but I could go into that if you need me to.
> 
> Fun thing. Does it sound good?
> 
> Cheers,
> Magnus
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